nd the lawyer copied it, and signed under the case as if
it had been his own. It ran so low with him that when Mr. North was at
London he sent up his cases to him, and had opinions returned by the
post; and, in the meantime he put off his clients on pretence of taking
the matter into serious consideration." Perhaps some readers of this
page can point to juniors of the present date whose professional
incapacity closely resembles the incompetence of this gay young
barrister of Charles II.'s time. Laughter again rises at the thought of
Lord Chancellor Bathurst and the judicial perplexities and blunders
which caused Sir Charles Williams to class him with those who

"Were cursed and stigmatized by power,
And rais'd to be expos'd."

Much more than an average or altogether desirable amount of amiability
has fallen to the reader who can refrain from a malicious smile, when he
is informed by reliable history that Lord Loughborough (no mean lawyer
or inefficient judge), gave utterance to so much bad law, as Chairman of
Quarter Sessions in canny Yorkshire, that when on appeal his decisions
were reversed with many polite expressions of _sincere_ regret by the
King's Bench, all Westminster Hall laughed in concert at the mistakes of
the sagacious Chief of the Common Pleas.

But no lawyer, brilliant or dull, has been more widely ridiculed for
incompetence than Erskine. Sir Causticus Witherett, being asked some
years since why a certain Chancellor, unjustly accused of intellectual
dimness by his political adversaries and by the uninformed public,
preferred his seat amongst the barons to his official place on the
woolsack, is said to have replied: "The Lord Chancellor usually takes
his seat amongst the peers whenever he can do so with propriety, because
he is a highly nervous man, and when he is on the woolsack, he is apt to
be frightened at finding himself all alone--_in the dark_." As soon as
Erskine was mentioned as a likely person to be Lord Chancellor, rumors
began to circulate concerning his total unfitness for the office; and no
sooner had he mounted the woolsack than the wits declared him to be
alone and in the dark. Lord Ellenborough's sarcasm was widely repeated,
and gave the cue to the advocate's detractors, who had little difficulty
in persuading the public that any intelligent law-clerk would make as
good a Chancellor as Thomas Erskine. With less discretion than
good-humor, Erskine gave countenance to the represen